Blog: August 2009

wed night was my 5th birthday in wanaka. along with korey wright and our MTV filmer tom cheno. (watch for "over the bolts"). the party started as a pockluck dinner/warmup for kareoke night in town. the whole night was super fun and pretty late. i'll have some pics up soon as i'm just about to jump on a plane to LAX. but i got the video done of the next day, XXtreme thursday, my last day in nz. the last part of the video is the canyon swing. one of the funnest things i've ever done. it's a ginornous 100m swing that has a 60m freefall.enjoy.

i've been pretty optomistic about being able to ride in the world cup this week. but after a few attempts at riding, a bunch of different taping methods on my ankle. it's just too sore to ride. So one of our team physios has basically called me home to get it looked at. no more nz.

we've got an "extreme" day tomorrow which should be awesome. especially since i've been pretty sedate for the last week and a half. bungee, jet boating and the canyon swing, which is a 300 foot pendulum swing through a river canyon. then i'm off to canada.

the world cup finals are today, so i'll try and get some footage to put up on here sometime this week. and when i get home and the net works normally, i'll put up some more photos of the trip down here and our day of jumping off stuff.

the downside to doing what i do. being on the other side of the world, with a hurt ankle, sitting on my ass all day. pretty much haven't done anything in 5 days. which is basically eternity here. having been here 5 times, i've pretty much seen what there's do be seen. physio sessions, light workouts and that's about it. hopefully my ankle is gonna be better soon, cause i'd love to snowboard. pretty bummed (and bored) right now

but nz is one of my favorite places to play, and here's a couple shots as to why i love it down here.the traffic, epic scenery, snowpark, and pumping epic surf at the points in raglan. can't wait to play again. hopefully within the next few days!

Burton nz open pipe finals. EPIC! The best comp I’ve ever seen. Last fall I was asked what I thought winning Olympic runs would be. My answer was “video game shit” as I knew what I had imagined in my head, and knew where it would go. At the US open this spring, luke mitrani landed a switch double backflip and I tried a frontside double cork 1080. Today, it became full on video game shit! Shaun had back to back frontside double corks, louie vito and nate johnstone were landing and trying (respectively) front double cork 1080s. luke landed a double michealchuck and a cab double cork 1080. I hurt my ankle in practise trying a totally new double cork (or at least haven’t seen this one yet..)It’s a new world in pipe riding and it’s awesome. And really scary! HahaThere’s a price to be paid to learn these tricks. most tricks are just an additional spin to an existing trick but doubles are a little different as it's extremely difficult to save yourself if they go wrong. Shaun chipped his ankle last winter, Kevin pearce broke his foot, I have no idea what I just did to my ankle but it hurts like hell right now, and a few weeks ago I had a double go really wrong and I thought, for a quick second as I was falling headfirst, that I was gonna end up in a wheelchair.I’m pretty stoked to see this level of snowboarding go down. i made another video of today, or at least some of my favorite runs. The internet is brutally slow and I can’t get it to upload onto my blog so check my youtube account. Hopefully I can get it up there. Otherwise check back, hopefully it'll be up soon. enjoy

if the below video doesn't work go check it on my youtube account. i couldn't transfer the vid to the file type i usually do, so it may or may not work on macs! or watch the comp friday on go211.comit's gonna go off.

since this is all gonna be seen on go21..com tomorrow, i'll let the cat out of the bag early. pipe practise today at the nz open, the future of pipe riding.. sorry for the shaky, and the quick edit. net is still slow here so the video is real small.

one of my favorite places in the world. surf and snow with in hours of each other, some of the best driving roads ever (if of course you like rallying), and did i mention surf and snow really close to each other...just had a day of riding up at cardrona. all the boys are here for the burton NZ open. and i guess the telecom company is on strike so the internet is really really slow. so i'm out. stay tuned for photos and more of the happenings down here soon.